Why is employee birthdate now required?

Great to have you here, cbcavnar.

I'm here to share details about why is employee birthdate is now required and turning off the warning message in QuickBooks Desktop.

When adding employees, you'd want to ensure all necessary information is entered into the system. Collecting all data is important to payroll setup because not adding the correct info can cause issues later on. The program will notify you of the mandatory fields that are missing. 

Regarding the warning message, the option to turn it off is unavailable in QuickBooks Desktop. I know this functionality would be beneficial to your business. 

 I'd recommend sending a feature request directly to our Product Development team. Doing so helps us improve your experience and the features of the program. 

Here's how:

1. Go to the Help menu and then select Send Feedback Online.
2. Choose Product Suggestion.
3. Add the type of feedback.
4. Type in your feature suggestion.
5. Once done, click Send Feedback.

For your visual reference, I've attached some screenshots below.

Additionally, I've added this article that'll help you view and access useful information about your business and employees in QuickBooks Desktop: Run Payroll Reports.

I'm only a few clicks away if you need assistance managing your employees and payroll in QuickBooks. It's always my pleasure to help you out.

As a firm processing quarterly payroll for multiple clients, this new birthdate requirement makes no sense. The  EMPLOYER is tasked with keeping essential employee records (w-4, I-9, etc) However, to process a quarterly payroll this information is just not necessary. We simply need employee name, address and social security number in order to file 941's and unemployment returns. The option to turn this off should be available, if not across all QB product versions, at the very least make this available for the Accountant version. It is completely unacceptable that I cannot move through the New Employee input screen without adding the birthdate... this is information I have not received from the employer. I will be using a random date. Please address this!

I recognize the relevance of having this ability for you and other users to turn off employee birthdate warnings when processing payrolls, pyork1.

As Intuit prioritizes and ensures all data information entered for each of your employees is complete and accurate, it's best to have these details recorded to comply with the employee's information data. 

In the meantime, you can share and submit this feedback directly to our product engineers to provide improvements and options to your suggestion, and may help us improve and meet customers' business needs. Thus, to help us achieve your goal, you may follow the steps shared by my colleague, CharleneMaeF, above to send this relevant idea.

Moreover, I'm sharing this reference to help you file forms and pay taxes manually with the IRS: Pay and file payroll taxes and forms manually in QuickBooks Desktop Payroll. It also includes steps on how to print and save your payroll tax forms.

I appreciate your willingness to help us improve our products, pyork1. Should you have any additional questions or other QuickBooks concerns, we'll be around whenever you need help. Keep safe!

Thanks for posting this.  I'm in the same situation.  Having to enter a dummy DOB is not a good operating procedure.

So QuickBooks now requires employee birthdate for payroll, in both Desktop and Online. Why?

They don't let us know of any age-related tax issues like:

 - children of business owners don't always have to pay SS & Medicare tax! Now there's a useful age-related issue. But QB has NEVER alerted to this despite 30 years of using the payroll module!

Is there ANY OTHER REASON to require a birthdate in the payroll profile other than Intuit's new insurance and retirement sales offerings?

What? Is that silence I hear? Again?

Can you tell that we are frustrated?

We all need to flood them with enhancement requests. (see earlier in this thread for how-to).   The fact that we are putting in phony dates just to get past the system is not a good solution as it may cause other problems during audits, insurance, etc. 

TOTAL AND COMPLETE BS AND MORE OF INTUIT PRYING THEIR WAY INTO PERSONAL DATA COLLECTION.

Just got the latest "Data Protection Agreement" from Intuit. Included in it is:

Intuit shall be the controller of Account Data and Customer Data when Intuit uses the Personal Information for Intuit’s own purposes, including for improvements in its products and presenting opportunities with Intuit to end users.

-also-

When acting as controller, e.g., for product improvement or to market offers to employee end-users of the Services, Intuit will individually determine the purpose and means of processing Customer Data and Account Data.

So the addition of the birth date requirement is so that they can market more products directly to the employees.

This new change, as well as the too frequent - intermittent issues syncing with QB Desktop, has caused me to discourage clients from signing up for QB Time (Workforce.)  I have processed many payrolls and payroll tax forms for both federal and multiple states and have never had to provide employee dates of birth on said forms.  The fact that Intuit will now be soliciting employee end users just feels completely wrong.

These new required fields for payroll make it impossible to work efficiently.  Before I could enter part of an employees information and get them added so I could record payroll info as I collected the rest of the information.  Now, I can no longer do this.  First, this is not something I am actually required to track, in addition, you have made the software of less value.  Please remove this newly added requirement

Hello there,

Currently, this is the new requirement that is configured in QuickBooks Desktop. As we value your suggestions, I recommend sending your feedback to our Product Development Team. Here is how:

1. In your QuickBooks account, click the Help option.
2. Select the Send Feedback Online option.
3. Choose Product Suggestion.
4. Enter your feedback.
5. Click the Send Feedback button.

Also, feel free to visit our Feedback forum page to see a list of other QuickBooks users who have already suggested this feature and for the recent updates in QuickBooks.

You can utilize this article for future reference: Customize reports in QuickBooks Desktop.

For additional QuickBooks-related concerns, don't hesitate to post them here in the Community. We're always available and willing to lend a hand to your queries. Have a great day ahead.

We did that.

Big deal.

No response, no change. Like always.

Wouldn't having a birth date AND social security number available in one place a HUGE security issue?  What if you are hacked?  This is just additional evidence of Intuit's greed and lack of response to those who use their products.  We are dealing with a near monopoly.  If anyone has information on other stand alone payroll software that only requires journal entries in to the main books I'd love to hear about it.  I am starting to look before the end of the year. 

I have used Intuit for at least 35 years.  The only thing I wish I had done 35 years ago?  Buy $1000 of Intuit.  I would at least benefited by their greed by the dramatic increase in their stock price over the past few years. 

I agree 100% Huge security risk.

I actually received the following from Intuit (AKA greedy money grubbers) regarding my complaint.

Hello there,

Currently, this is the new requirement that is configured in QuickBooks Desktop. As we value your suggestions, I recommend sending your feedback to our Product Development Team. Here is how:

In your QuickBooks account, click the Help option. Select the Send Feedback Online option. Choose Product Suggestion. Enter your feedback. Click the Send Feedback button.

New requirement? NOT from the IRS - From Big Brother Intuit. Notice they want me to direct complaints to them, and not to the community board where others can see. These people are out of control and are clearly not being monitored.

I too have been a user for over 25 years and am fed up with their BS requirements. You can put the software on a standalone pc and NOT hook it up to the web. You can keep this going on your own and use an outside service calculator if needed and enter PR via AJE. Here are a few; Gusto, Xero, SurePayroll, and of course the biggies, Paychex and ADP. Personally, I prefer Paychex reports over ADP.

I'm also researching Xero, Sage, Zoho, Wave and FreshBooks for replacement accounting software.  Intuit is NOT then end all, be all of accounting software. Looking forward to the day when I can kick'em to the curb.

Date of birth of an employee is NOT a necessary piece of information in order to process payroll properly, so QB can shut that line of reasoning down.   You aren't dealing with a bunch of amateurs here.  My immediate concern is whether QB is going to force us to enter the date of birth to "issue W2s easily," which is on the File Forms tab of payroll.  If QB isn't doing some sort of back-end verification of socials and dobs, which I'm sure they are not, then we need an opt out option for entering this information well before the end of the year so we aren't all in a huge bind while processing W2s.

This notification is rediculous. Our company doesn't have ANY employees in the system and we do not use the payroll feature. This notification isn't even for a state we operate in. There needs to be a way to turn this off in desktop. I did already submit feedback as stated in the response.

Has anyone received confirmation that we will still be able to file W-2's electronically without entering a DOB?  I don't want to be in a huge bind come January when I don't have DOB.

No. That would be illegal.

QB might do it anyway.

I've been filling in unknown birthdays with random days. Over 21, younger than 65.

It's all for marketing of Intuit products to our employees. 

No. That would be illegal.

QB might do it anyway.

I've been filling in unknown birthdays with random days. Over 21, younger than 65.

It's all for marketing of Intuit products to our employees. 

Here's a response that I received on a different thread.